


theory of (im)probabilities

by wave_of_sorrow



Category: A-Team (2010), Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M, TARDIS - Freeform, Timey-Wimey, companion!Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 02:30:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wave_of_sorrow/pseuds/wave_of_sorrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Doctor is an old friend of Hannibal's, Face gets out-flirted by Jack, Rose and Murdock are entirely too amused and BA tries to pretend none of it is happening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	theory of (im)probabilities

  
_We are an impossibility in an impossible universe._  
Ray Bradbury

The year is 2017, and Hannibal thinks that after all they’ve been through, all the bullets they’ve dodged and mad escapes they’ve made, this is it for his team: a substandard bomb that only succeeds in blowing up the half of the warehouse they aren’t in, and setting the other half on fire.

“Hannibal!” Face yells and he’s clutching his side, and there’s detachment in the way Hannibal thinks that, whatever it is, in a few minutes it won’t matter anymore.

“What is it, Face?” he says, and lights his post-mission cigar because he doesn’t know what else to do. The flames are beginning to close in around them, and BA stumbles into the room with Murdock in tow whose baseball cap is singed and smoking.

“Hannibal,” Face says again, and resignation and despair battle for domination over his expression in the melting air. “Boss, there’s no way out.”

Hannibal wants to say _I know_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I should never have made any of you come here,_ but he makes the mistake of looking at them, at Face who needs him to make it okay and Murdock who needs him to get them out and BA who needs him to believe it can be done, and so what he does say is this: “There’s always a way out, kid.”

They look at him like they know there isn’t but are oddly grateful for the lie anyway, and there’s no anger, no real fear or regret in any of them; they’re calm, and perhaps a bit sad, and most of all glad they’re together. They’ve followed him all these years knowing full well that every mission they took and every job they did could be their last, and now that they’ve come to it, it’s all right.

“I’ll get us out,” he promises, and he almost sounds like he thinks he actually will. There’s smoke in his eyes and the room is getting smaller, and he doesn’t realise he’s not lying until an ominous grinding noise reaches them over the roar of the fire and a wooden blue box appears right next to them.

Face says, “What the hell,” and it comes out as a cough.

Hannibal closes his eyes in relief and tosses his half-smoked cigar into the flames, and he fumbles with the chain around his neck that still has his dog tags and a nondescript key on it. “What did I tell you, boys?” he says as he gets the door open, and turns back only long enough to bare his teeth in a grin. “Always a way out.”

Face hesitates only for a moment after Hannibal disappears into the box, barely long enough to exchange a look with Murdock who only shrugs like _this is way beyond my level of crazy,_ before he follows him like he always does. Murdock bounds in after Face and, with a shrug, BA follows too.

“I’m not trying to rain on your parade, man,” he’s saying, voice choked from all the smoke he’s breathed in, “but there’s no way four grown men are gonna fit inside a— whoa.”

“Close the door, will you, BA?” Hannibal says, trying hard not to laugh at the expressions on his men’s faces. He’s standing by the console with the Doctor, who triggers the dematerialisation sequence with practised ease.

“It’s bigger on the inside?” Face says, and Hannibal knows he’d sound hysterical if it wasn’t for how wrecked his voice is right now.

“It’s dimensionally transcendental, Facey,” Murdock says with obvious enthusiasm, eyeing the control panels and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

The Doctor’s grin is surprised and pleased, and Hannibal says, “You are _not_ to fly this spaceship, Captain. Understand?”

“What do you mean flying, fool?” BA demands, and Hannibal winces.

“Technically it isn’t so much flying as disappearing,” he says, gesturing vaguely and making a face, “and _re_ appearing somewhere else.”

“Or some _when_ else,” the blonde girl occupying the jump seat says, and exchanges grins with the blue-eyed man next to her.

BA sits down on the metal grating and puts his head in his hands.

“Wait,” Face says, rubbing a sooty hand over his mouth, “are you talking, like, time travel?”

“Yep,” the Doctor says, and he looks mad and delighted and Hannibal only chuckles when Face looks at him for help.

“That’s impossible,” he says, and it’s in the voice he uses when he’s telling Hannibal his plan has bypassed completely nuts and gone straight for suicidal. “You do know that, right?”

“Not impossible,” the Doctor says, and his grin is madder than Hannibal’s and Murdock’s put together. “Just very unlikely.”

“No, no,” Face says, and he’s definitely starting to sound hysterical now. “Hitting your target in the middle of a sandstorm, or disarming a bomb with your hands tied behind your back, or keeping BA from strangling Murdock if he ever figures out how many flights he’s been on without knowing; _that’s_ unlikely. Fucking spaceships in the shape of police boxes and time travel? That’s downright insane.”

“Who ever said anything about sane?” the Doctor asks, looking a little disgruntled and a lot amused. “You amaze me, you humans; you spend your whole existence making stuff up and selling it as fact, but given proof of something _unlikely_ you choose to look the other way. That’s the problem with you: you’ll believe the impossible, but not the improbable.”

“Didn’t Oscar Wilde say that?” Hannibal asks, and he thinks it might be best if he doesn’t mention that he actually _heard_ him say it.

“Whoa, back up. What do you mean ‘us humans’?” Face asks, eyes narrowing.

“Well, I’m not human, am I?” the Doctor says, and Hannibal grimaces at the way Face goes very, very still.

“Okay,” he says levelly, and from experience Hannibal knows that’s the tone of voice that precedes a full-blown hissy fit. “Will someone please explain what the fuck is going on here?”

“This thing’s called the TARDIS,” the man in the RAF coat says, cutting in smoothly and getting Face’s attention. “It travels anywhere in time and space, and sometimes, if the old girl is feeling generous, it even takes you where you _want_ to go.” He smiles like it’s funny, and the blonde girl snorts and the Doctor glares, so maybe it is. “That’s the Doctor and Rose Tyler, and I’m Captain Jack Harkness.”

He squeezes Face’s hand and doesn’t let go, and gradually Face’s overwhelmed expression morphs into a filthy grin. This, unlike spaceships and time travel and impossible blue boxes, is familiar territory for Face and it calms him down like it always does.

“I’m Face,” he says, and Hannibal watches his thumb leave a smear of ashes on the back of Jack’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Face,” he’s saying, and the Doctor briefly glances up at them from where he’s checking something or other on the monitor. “I can see where the name comes from.”

Face’s grin widens and his teeth are ridiculously white against his sooty skin, and it’s a disturbingly accurate mirror image of Jack’s own smile.

There’s the tiniest change in their body language, nothing more than a slight shift of balance on both their parts that subtly angles their bodies towards each other, and it wouldn’t mean anything at all if this wasn’t Face and Hannibal hadn’t seen him pull that one on a hundred marks. There’s no discernable shift in power, though, neither of them backing down and submitting, and that’s not very surprising.

In Face it’s the stereotypical heterosexual male of the twenty-first century rearing its head, because he’ll blow a guy to get them information and kiss Hannibal when he’s drunk but taking it up the ass would make him gay. In Jack, Hannibal thinks, it’s that he doesn’t really mind either way, but backing down from a challenge wouldn’t suit him at all. Next to Hannibal the Doctor shifts and focuses his attention on the conmen.

Face breaks eye contact, and a blush spreads from his cheeks down his neck. Jack chuckles low in his throat, and tugs him closer by his hand.

_“Lieutenant!”_

_“Captain!”_

They manage to speak at exactly the same time and in disturbingly similar tones, and Face and Jack freeze as Rose and Murdock nearly fall over laughing. Hannibal keeps glaring at Face, and he deliberately doesn’t look over to check the Doctor’s expression because he thinks he might find his own staring back at him.

“Face,” he growls, and Face drops his gaze and pulls away from Jack.

“Sorry, boss,” he mumbles, and drops down on the floor next to BA who still seems to be pretending none of this is happening.

Jack raises his hands in a placating gesture, and says, “I know, I know. Time and a place, right?”

“Right,” the Doctor says, and he sounds like he has as much experience with false apologies and distracting smiles as Hannibal.

The last of Rose’s rather unflattering snorting laughter dies down and she only bites her tongue and grins when the Doctor scowls at her, and at least Murdock has the good grace to look sheepish.

*

“Why?” Hannibal asks later, when Jack’s been sent off with strict instructions to take care of Face’s cracked ribs and nothing else, and Rose and Murdock have hauled BA off to the kitchen with promises of toast points, and it’s just the Doctor and him left in the control room.

“Why what?” the Doctor asks, and doesn’t look up from where he’s fiddling with the monitor again.

“Why save us,” Hannibal clarifies, and he remembers when he was young and angry and a big-eared stranger told him he never gets involved.

The Doctor shrugs, and says, “I was in the neighbourhood and it wasn’t your time to die, yet.”

“I see,” Hannibal says even though he doesn’t, and ignores the Doctor’s disproving scowl as he lights a cigar.

They lapse into silence, and Hannibal leans back against a coral strut and watches the leather of the Doctor’s jacket stretch and shift across his shoulders; it’s barely aged since he last saw it and neither has the man wearing it, and it makes him feel _old._

He chuckles around a mouthful of smoke, and the Doctor raises a questioning eyebrow at him. “Just contemplating the absurdity of feeling old next to you,” Hannibal supplies, and earns himself a soft smile.

“Well, it’s been a while for you since I dropped you off,” the Doctor says, and there’s something in his voice that, if it were anyone else, might have been nostalgia.

“That it has,” Hannibal agrees, and he can’t help it if his smile is a little sad.

It’s been such a long time since he travelled in the TARDIS, since he saw foreign worlds and aliens and visited days long gone and yet to come, that he’d forgotten what it’s like to be here. He’s missed it, not the planets with warm snow or the cities made of almost-gold or the not-quite people, but _this:_ a monitor with circular designs he cannot read and all of time humming away in the heart of this ship, and the Doctor’s razor sharp grins.

The Doctor looks at him like he understands, and leans over to kiss him on the mouth.

*

“Hey, boss,” Face says, and drops down on the sofa next to him.

They’re deep in the library because Hannibal hasn’t really built up the courage to go look for his old room yet and this is the place he’s always felt safest, with its muffled quiet and perpetual warmth and the smell of books, old and new and not-yet written, all around him.

“Hey, kid,” he echoes, and puts down the book he started three decades ago and never finished.

Face tilts his head to read the title. “The Death and Life of… how the hell do you pronounce that?”

Hannibal chuckles. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

Face grins, and it’s good to see him calmer and more like himself now. “What’s it about?”

“It’s about this guy’s death and life,” Hannibal deadpans, and Face laughs and punches him in the shoulder.

“Shouldn’t that be the other way round? You know, life and death?” he asks, and before Hannibal can reply he’s holding up a hand to stop him. “No, hold on, let me guess: time travel. And when you say ‘guy’ you actually mean ‘tentacle monster from outer space’, am I right?”

“Always said you were a fast learner, Face,” he says, and despite the levity of their conversation they’re both radiating tension and exhaustion.

Face smiles a little, a tired, lopsided thing that makes Hannibal’s chest ache, and they lapse into a silence that would be awkward except that they’ve known each other for so long that nothing really is anymore.

“So,” Face says after a few moments, and takes a deep breath, “you and the Doctor, huh?”

Hannibal looks at him and can’t stop his brow from creasing, and Face ducks his head and twists his hands in his lap.

“I, uh, I saw you in the control room earlier,” he says with an apologetic smile, and Hannibal isn’t sure why he’s bringing it up now if he didn’t say anything then.

“That was a long time ago, kid,” he says, and it was. “He’s just an old friend.”

“Didn’t look like it to me,” Face says, and laughs nervously. Hannibal pins him with a stare that makes him squirm in his seat, and he says, “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I didn’t really think about it and now…” He trails off, and Hannibal reaches over to squeeze one restless hand. Face looks up at him and musters a shaky smile, and when he speaks Hannibal isn’t sure he’s saying what he really means. “I guess I thought we’d just be on our way again, but now I’m wondering if you wouldn’t rather stay.”

He wants to say _why are we having this conversation_ and _what’s really bothering you here_ and _can I kiss you,_ but instead he says, “This life, here, with the Doctor, was another life. You’re my life now, Face. You and BA and Murdock. I’m not leaving you boys.”

Something passes over Face’s expression, some tiny sliver of an unnamed emotion exposed for a fraction of a moment before it’s tucked away again, and then he’s saying, “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Face pulls his feet up under him and puts his head on Hannibal’s shoulder, and he smells like smoke and _we almost didn’t make it_ and home.

*

Hannibal says, “So, I was thinking.”

“It’s time I took you back,” the Doctor says without looking up from where he’s pressing buttons and flipping switches, and Hannibal almost has to smile.

“It is,” he agrees, and the Doctor abandons the control panels in favour of studying Hannibal’s face.

“All right, then,” he says, and he looks grim and like he’s known this was coming all along. “We’ll be off as soon as I’ve got the temporal control valve fixed.”

“I’d ask BA to take a look at it,” Hannibal says, grinning, “but I know how protective you are of your girl.”

“He doesn’t seem to feel very differently about that van of his, from what you’ve told me,” the Doctor says, and his expression makes it clear he’ll still throw BA out of an airlock if he so much as looks at his TARDIS. “We should be good to go in a day or two.”

“Fantastic,” Hannibal says, and it gets him a tired smile in response. He feels oddly dismissed, and so he turns to leave the Doctor to do his tinkering but he doesn’t get very far.

“Are you sure about this?” the Doctor asks, and when Hannibal looks back at him he’s pretending to be busy again.

He shrugs, and says, “What else is there to do?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor says absent-mindedly, and lovingly hits the console with the mallet. “You could always stay, I suppose.”

Hannibal wonders why he’s asking this now when he never said anything thirty years ago, and with a jolt realises that it’s been longer for him since they last had such a conversation than it’s been for the Doctor. He says, “I can’t.”

“You know something about my future,” the Doctor says, and Hannibal doesn’t answer because it isn’t a question. He almost thinks the Doctor looks lost, and maybe having all the timelines of all the beings in all the cosmos running through his head makes him just as blind to tomorrow as the next bloke.

“I can’t stay,” Hannibal says again, and wants nothing more than to tell the Doctor about the ancient-young man in the RAF coat who came to see him when he first returned to Earth all those years ago.

The Doctor studies his face for a moment, and Hannibal wonders what he sees in him when those eyes have seen almighty civilisations burn and brave new worlds rise from the ashes of dying stars. “Okay,” he says eventually, and Hannibal’s old enough now to know that it’s not what he means to say at all.

“Okay,” he echoes, and that’s that.

*

They stay for what passes as a few days aboard the TARDIS, and the Doctor drops them off in Toronto seven months after the warehouse blew up. They’re by the side of a lake and the sun’s starting to sink, and a thin layer of snow crunches under their feet.

“You’re presumed dead now,” he tells them as they step outside, and leans back against the doors with his arms crossed. “That should keep the authorities off your back, at least for now. And this,” he tosses Hannibal a little scanner device, “should let you access any database on Earth without detection.”

Hannibal says, “Thank you.”

The Doctor nods, and says nothing.

It’s Rose who breaks the silence. “You could still come with us,” she says, and sounds like she already knows they won’t.

Hannibal smiles at her, and when she smiles back she’s heartbreakingly beautiful in her innocence. He wants to say _your heart is too big for your own good_ and _look after him_ and _don’t let this become the only life you know,_ but what comes out is, “It was nice meeting you, Miss Tyler.”

He offers her his hand and she looks at it, raises an eyebrow and grins with her tongue caught between her teeth, and launches herself at him with so much momentum he has no choice but to wrap his arms around her to avoid falling over.

“It was nice meeting you too, Hannibal,” she says into his shoulder, and he resists the urge to kiss the top of her head.

She repeats the process with Face, who kisses her on the cheek and gets a not-quite-friendly slap in response, and bumps fists with BA, who mostly seems glad to have his feet back on solid ground, and then she’s performing some complicated handshake acrobatics with Murdock that they appear to have practiced during their down time. It’s ridiculous and adorable, and it makes BA shake his head and fail to hide a fond smile.

“You sure I can’t fuck you?” Jack is saying to Face, and Hannibal can’t supress a snort.

Face laughs and rubs a hand over his mouth, looks away and then back, and says, “I’m sure, yeah. Sorry.”

The Doctor makes an amused sound, and Hannibal turns back to look at him. He says, “I guess this is it, then.”

“Guess so,” the Doctor says, and shaking hands goodbye feels odd but anything else would feel odder.

Hannibal wants to say _thank you_ and _I owe you so much_ and _I did my best but was it enough,_ and he knows he’ll never give voice to any of it. “Take care, Doc,” he says, and he mostly just says it to annoy the Doctor once more for old times’ sake.

The Doctor’s grin is wry and indulgent and the look he gives Hannibal clearly says _off you go,_ and so Hannibal goes.

He puts an arm around Face’s shoulders as he shakes Jack’s hand, and he wants to say _stop hiding_ and _just tell them that you love them_ and _I’m sorry for what’s going to happen to you._ “Captain,” he says, instead.

“Colonel,” Jack says, and studies the two of them for a moment. “Promise you’ll give me a call if you ever decide to resolve all the sexual tension between you, because I’d give my left arm to see that.”

“Captain!” The Doctor’s stern bark reaches them, and Hannibal chuckles even as Face blushes because that’s not the first time he’s heard Jack say that, though Jack hasn’t said it before. Jack winks at them, and follows Rose into the TARDIS.

“Doctor,” Face says, and Hannibal belatedly realises he’s still got his arm around him and drops it. BA scowls, and Murdock pats the wooden panels encasing a ticket to the whole of space and time goodbye.

“Gentlemen,” the Doctor says with a nod, and gives them a sloppy salute before pushing the TARDIS doors open.

When he’s got one foot inside he turns back to Hannibal again, and says, “By the way, I don’t think I ever said: you were fantastic.” The Doctor’s grin is sudden and mad and his eyes are saying something else entirely, and that’s the last Hannibal ever sees of him.

They watch the TARDIS dematerialise, and then it’s just the four of them again, standing by the shores of an almost-frozen lake with night quickly falling around them.

Face says, “What now, boss?”

Hannibal inhales cold air and madmen and magic boxes and lives never lived, imagines a different universe where the A-Team travels through time and space with the Doctor and Jack Harkness only dies once, and lets it go in a cloud of fogging breath. He says, “Let’s find somewhere to stay.”

*

“Want some help with that?” Face asks, and Hannibal looks up from where he’s doing the dishes to find him leaning back against the kitchen counter with his hands in his pockets.

“Nah, it’s fine,” he says, turning back to the sink. “I’m almost done.”

Face says, “Okay,” and stays where he is as Hannibal rinses the soap off the last two cups and a fork.

He takes his time drying them and putting them back into the cupboards, and all the while he feels Face watching him and waiting for things Hannibal doesn’t think he can give him. He puts the kettle on and makes some of the shitty herbal tea the owners of this house seem to be fond of, because they’ve run out of coffee and the motions calm him like nicotine or disassembling a gun, or shooting one.

He pours them two cups, stirs honey into his own because it reminds him of when he was sick as a kid and his mum did that to make it taste better, and slides one towards Face across the countertop as he takes a seat in one of the stools.

“Thanks,” Face says, and an odd half-smile plays around his mouth.

Hannibal nods, and lets the heat of the tea seep into his palms.

“BA’s out looking for a new van,” Face says, and he doesn’t look at Hannibal. “I think he’s already found one that he likes but doesn’t want to ask you for the money.” They currently only have one bank account to withdraw from, too worried they’ll expose themselves by using any of their old ones, and thanks to a little conning from Face and utilisation of the Doctor’s farewell present they now have more money than they’ve had all their lives.

“I’ll talk to him,” Hannibal promises, and Face sits down across from him.

“Murdock’s passed out in the pantry,” he goes on, and bites his thumb; a nervous habit Hannibal thought he’d broken decades ago. “Not where I’d like him to be, but at least he’s sleeping, right?”

“Right,” Hannibal agrees, and watches Face shift and blink and stare into his untouched tea. “And what about you?”

It makes Face look up, and he sounds confused when he says, “What _about_ me?”

“How are you holding up?” Hannibal asks, and Face shrugs.

“You know me, boss,” he says, and his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, dark circles smudged under them like bruises.

“I do,” Hannibal says, and it comes out soft and sad.

Face ignores him, and says, “I might have a job for us in Vancouver. Nothing big, just some local thugs stirring up shit.”

“We don’t need to keep doing this,” Hannibal says, and with the Doctor’s device they really don’t. “If we needed the money we could just scam it.”

“Yeah,” Face says, and his smile is tired and fond. “But that’s not us, is it?”

“No,” Hannibal says, feeling something like pride flare in his chest and settle behind his ribs. “It’s not.”

They lapse into silence then, and the air between them is heavy with words they can’t find and truths they won’t say. Hannibal listens to Face breathe, to the ticking of the hallway clock and his own heartbeat, until he can almost believe this is all there is: making plans in the warm kitchen of somebody else’s house, and there’s no such thing as time-travel. It’s a nice thought, because it would mean that Face isn’t as confused and mad as he hasn’t been since he was twenty and that BA is actually speaking to him and that Murdock’s yearning for spaceships is just his usual crazy-talk.

Face says, “Why?” and the illusion evaporates.

“Why what, kid?” Hannibal asks, and he doesn’t think he wants to know the answer.

“Why fuck the Doctor?” he says, and he does meet Hannibal’s gaze then, defiantly raising his chin.

“Face,” Hannibal says, and there’s little left of the anger and authority his voice used to carry every time the kid acted out of line.

“In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never shown the slightest interest in another man. Why him?” Face asks, and all Hannibal hears is _why not me._

He wants to say _because I was young and he was everything I was afraid I’d never be_ and _because he never expected me to be anything more than human_ and _because you’re not gay,_ but he doesn’t. Instead he says, “What are you really asking me here, Face?”

“You know what I’m asking you,” Face says, and Hannibal does.

“You reminded me of myself, you know,” he says, and Face looks a little confused, “when you first joined my unit. All that anger and defiance and need; it was like looking into a mirror and twenty years into the past.” He has to smile and a small answering grin tugs at the corner of Face’s mouth, and neither of them looks particularly happy or amused.

“Doesn’t sound like you at all, boss,” he says, and sips his quickly cooling tea with obvious distaste.

“I wanted you to be able to stand on your own two feet,” Hannibal goes on, and he wishes Face had understood that. “I couldn’t promise you I’d always be there any more than the Doctor could promise me, and I didn’t ever want you to fall flat on your ass once I’m gone.”

“Don’t even joke about that, man,” Face says, and it comes out angry and scared.

Hannibal reaches out and rests his hand on Face’s forearm, and he says, “Back in the early days I wasn’t sure you’d be okay on your own, and when I was you didn’t really need me at all anymore.”

“Bullshit,” Face says, because the truth is that he _wants_ to need Hannibal.

What it really was is this: Hannibal knows what it’s like to be young and lost and angry, and what it does to you when someone actually, properly believes in you for the first time. Except that now, with worry lines deepening between Face’s eyebrows and the corners of his eyes and mouth permanently creased, he doesn’t have very much of an excuse anymore. He thinks, dimly, that maybe if Face hadn’t reminded him so much of himself and he’d just given in to the confused, conflicted advances, then they wouldn’t both still be so lost.

“Face,” he says, and the word leaves him in a sigh.

They kiss, and it tastes like artron energy and herbal tea and _finally._

In another universe, Face says, “Forget it,” and gets up to pour his cold tea down the drain, and for once Hannibal is certain he’s exactly where he should be.

*

“Colonel,” Jack says, sliding into the booth opposite Hannibal.

BA is getting the newly acquired van ready, with help from Murdock because Murdock’s developed an alarming interest in screwdrivers and needs to be kept busy, and Face is off charming the bank into giving them money that isn’t technically theirs. Which leaves Hannibal, sitting in a little diner to go over the job they’ve got lined up while he waits for the kid. He says, “Captain.”

“I see you didn’t warn him,” Jack says, and Hannibal looks at him sharply. He hasn’t aged very much, his face still that of the lad travelling with the Doctor and Rose Tyler, except that it isn’t. There’s bone-deep weariness now where there once was only brash flirtation, and he looks terribly old in the cold winter sunlight. 

“What makes you so sure?” he asks, and it comes out as a growl.

The waitress comes by to fill their cups with bad coffee and Jack smiles at her with all his teeth showing and ogles her retreating backside, and says, “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Hannibal makes a non-committal sound and scowls into his chipped cup, and someone scribbled _bad wolf_ onto the tabletop in fading pink sharpie.

Jack says, “Thank you.”

Hannibal takes a swallow of coffee and grimaces at the taste, and says, “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“Yeah,” Jack says with half a laugh, “but that’s not the kind of man you are. He taught you better than that.” 

“Don’t make this about him,” Hannibal says, angry and defensive.

“It’s always about him,” Jack says, and Hannibal says nothing because it is. “Anyway, I just came by to see if you were alright. Guess I’ll be on my way, then.”

He gets up, and Hannibal asks, “Was he? Alright, I mean.”

Jack grins, and says, “You know him. He’s always alright.”

It’s a barefaced lie, and it makes Hannibal huff out a breath that sounds too bitter to be called a laugh. “And what about you? Were you alright?”

Something passes over Jack’s face, a little snippet of an emotion Hannibal can’t quite name, and his smile is unkind. “Like you said, you should have killed me when you had the chance.”

For a moment Hannibal lets himself believe that, somewhen in a different universe, he did.

Then Jack’s gone, and all that’s left is an untouched cup of bitter coffee and the energy of a life lived out of time prickling over Hannibal’s skin.

Face drops into the recently vacated seat and steals Hannibal’s half-drunk coffee because it’s already got milk and sugar in it. “Ugh, this stuff is disgusting,” he complains, and Hannibal rolls his eyes.

“You got everything?” he asks, and Face nods, fingers tapping an unfamiliar rhythm against Hannibal’s palm until they’re caught and squeezed. “Alright, let’s go.”

As they leave the café and step outside into the snowy street, Face says, “You know, I almost thought I saw Captain Jack crossing the street before.”

Hannibal pats his pockets for a cigar and lighter, and says, “You did. He came by to make sure we sent his younger self off with the Doctor and kept the timelines intact.”

Face stops, handing over the spare matches he keeps in his coat pocket, and says, “Wait, what.”

“He paid me a visit back before I was even a colonel,” Hannibal says around his cigar, “because he remembered meeting me when he travelled with the Doctor, which hadn’t happened for me yet. Back then he was desperately trying to find him again and he thought I might have some answers. I didn’t, and the timelines were completely fucked to hell so he stopped by again to make sure it all went as he remembered it.”

“Okay, hold on. Let me get this straight,” Face says, and he looks like he’s really trying not to be freaked out by it. “He met you before you met him?”

“Time travel’s a bitch, kid,” Hannibal supplies, and he doesn’t think Face finds that very helpful so he puts an arm around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head.

“You can’t meet someone before they’ve met you,” Face says stubbornly. “That’s impossible."

“Not impossible,” Hannibal says, and his grin is mad and shows his teeth. “Just _very_ unlikely.”


End file.
